Roller mill trough



May 19, 5 ET. PETERSON, 2,33 ,993

ROLLER MILL TROUGH Filed Jan. 5, 1955 4 Sheets-Sheet 1 INVENTOR May 19,1959 E. T. PETERSON ROLLER MILL TROUGH 4 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Jan. 5,1955 INVENTOR [MM/FD I PHI/950A ORNEYS May 19, 1959 E. T. PETERSONROLLER MILL TROUGH 4 Sheets-Shae t 3 Filed Jan. 5, 1955 INVENTOR [Oh4,90 T Fifi/P50 E. T. PETERSON May 19, 195 9 ROLLER MILL TROUGH 4Sheets-Sheet 4 Filed Jan. 5, 1955 Y &

. INVENTOR [DP/A20 7." PfDFRSO/V ATTORNEYS ROLLER MILL TROUGH Edward T.Peterson, Reading, Pa., assignor to Birdsboro Steel Foundry and MachineCompany, Birdsboro, Pa., a corporation of Delaware Application January5, 1955, Serial No. 479,890

3 Claims. (Cl. 80--51) The present invention relates to troughs forrolling mills, especially troughs of the character employed oncontinuous mills.

A purpose of the invention is to eliminate scratching and other damageto the bar being rolled.

A further purpose is to facilitate speed control on a continuous mill bypermitting. better observation of the bar on the trough.

A further purpose is to eliminate the need of a flap to guide the barfrom stand to stand when a side loop is produced between mill stands.

A further purpose is to simplify the mechanism for removing the troughsto gain access to the mill guides, and avoid danger of rendering themechanism inoperative by clogging with mill scale.

A further purpose is to provide guide means raised above the inclinedrollers to assure supplemental guiding.

of the stock when conditions of rolling make such supplemental guidingdesirable.

Further purposes appear in the specification and in the claims.

In the drawings 1 have chosen to illustrate one only of the numerousembodiments in which my invention may appear, selecting the form shownfrom the standpoints of convenience in illustration, satisfactoryoperation and clear demonstration of the principles involved.

Figure l is a fragmentary top plan view of a continuous mill showing twomill troughs connecting three mill stands in accordance with theinvention.

Figure 2 is a side elevation of the structure of Figure 1.

Figure 3 is an enlarged section through one of the troughs on the line3-3 of Figure 1.

Figure 4 is an enlarged section on the line 44 of Figure l, omitting allmechanism except for the support of an individual trough roller.

Figure 5 is an enlarged section on the line 5-5 of Figure 2. i

Figure 6 is an enlarged section on the line 66 of Figure 3.

Describing in illustration but not in limitation and referring to thedrawings:

The present invention is concerned particularly with continuous rollingmills of the character which are used to produce bars and shapes ofsteel and other structural metals, but is applicable also to rollingmills of other types.

In ordinary rolling mill practice, the troughs between roll stands aremerely U-shaped solid cast iron guiding members. These troughs of theprior art are subject to a number of disadvantages from the standpointof use particularly in continuous mills, but also applying to someextent in the case of ordinary non-continuous mills.

There is a tendency for the prior art troughs to scratch the bar duringits travel. This is undesirable, particularly when rolling stainlesssteel and other materials on which a high finish is desired.

Another difliculty encountered with the troughs of the States Patent2,886,993 ii atented May 19, 1959 prior art is that it is difiicult forthe speed control operator of the continuous mill to see the stock whileit is in the trough, and therefore speed cannot be effectivelycontrolled.

In many prior art installations, it is desired to form side loops of thebar between roll stands. In such cases, normal practice requires the useof a fiat looping surface at one side of the trough, with an air orelectrically operated flap to guide the bar from stand to stand. Afterthe bar has entered the succeeding stand the flap is retracted. p

In the conventional troughs it is normal practice to mount the structuresolidly on the base. In some cases the whole trough is made horizontallyretractable so that access can be attained to the mill guides.Structures of this horizontally retractable character require slida'blebases which are complicated and expensive, and are subject to cloggingby mill scale, so that often it is impossible to move the retractablemechanism.

In some cases the guiding obtained by conventional troughs may not befully adequate to meet the requirements.

In accordance with the present invention, each trough consists of aseries of rollers having their axes parallel and in a common plane andpositioned side by side. The rollers turn with the bar, thus avoidingscratching of the bar.

The rollers also support the bar in a position such that it is visibleto the speed control operator at all times, so that much more effectivespeed regulation of the mill can be obtained.

In the preferred embodiment, the rollers slope, and are it flanged attheir lower ends, the angle of the side of the flange toward the rollerwith respect to the axis of the roller being suitably greater than aright angle and preferably in the range between 140 and 109 degrees, andmost desirably about the angle of the cylindrical roller axes to thehorizontal being preferably between about 5 and 15 degrees and mostdesirably about 10 degrees. Under these conditions the trough acts as aside looping surface for the bar and there is no need for retractableside loo-ping guides or flaps.

Also in the preferred embodiment of the invention, the trough rollersare made to swing up bodily about a longitudinal pivotal shaftpositioned at the high side, so that they can readily be raised out ofthe way to clear the space between the mill stands for work on theguides.

The present invention also makes it possible to raise supplementalguides above the inclined rollers to obtain further guiding whenrequired.

Considering now the drawings in detail, I illustrate a continuousrolling mill having vertical mill standsZtl (only one of which is shown)and horizontal mill stands 21 (only two of which are shown), separated.by troughs 22 which form the subject matter of the present invention.The troughs differ in the number of trough rollers to suit the distancebetween the roll stands, but are otherwise desirably the same. Eachtrough includes a base 23 which rests on the foundation of the mill andwhich includes a column support 24 which extends up at one side of thetrough, suitably the high side, and a lateral bracket 25 which providesthe anchorage for the operating mechanism.

At the top of the column support 24 there is a series of longitudinalbearings 26 which journal a shaft 27 extending longitudinally in thedirection of stock travel and desirably consisting of bearing portions28 and connecting portions 30 which are suitably joined as by welding at31.

The connecting portions 34 are cross drilled at 32 to receive the shankends 33 of roller shafts 34 which extend out with their centers in acommon axis plane for all of the rollers of a given trough, with thecenters in side by side parallel relation. The roller shafts 34 aresuitably united to the longitudinal shaft portions 30 by welding at 35.

Each of the shafts 34 has a cylindrical trough roller 36 journalledthereon, the trough rollers desirably comprising an inboard head 37which engages the outside of an antifriction bearing 38, suitably a ballbearing, secured on the inside on the shaft, an outboard head 40 whichengages the outside of an antifriction bearing 41, suitably a ballbearing, secured at the inside to the shaft, and a tubular portion 42welded at 43 to the inboard head and at 44 to the outboard head.

The inboard head has an oil seal at 45 on the shaft at one end, and athreaded closure 46 carrying an oil seal 47 on the shaft at the otherend. The outboard head has an oil seal 48 on the shaft at one end and abearing locking closure 50 threaded in the head 40 at the other end. Anut 51 secures the inner race of the bearing 41 on the shaft 34.

In operative position, the outboard ends of the trough rollers are lowerthan the inboard ends, the trough rollers desirably being disposed at anangle of between and 15 degrees to the horizontal, preferably aboutdegrees. The outboard ends of the rollers at their periphery at 52 areof the diameter of the tube 42 and at the outboard ends the rollers haveradially extending flanges 53 whose sides 54 toward the rollers make anobtuse angle preferably between 100 and 140 degrees and preferably about120 degrees with respect to the axis of the rollers. This produces acomponent of motion of the bar being rolled up along the roller, whilethe downward inclination of the roller tends to make the bar travel atthe lowest point and the effect is to carry the bar 55 (Figure 3) at thelow point.

At one position along its length, the shaft 27 carries a stop dog 58(Figure 5) which in normal operating position of the rollers engages anadjustable stop 60 held on the top of the frame. Thus the desired angleof the rollers can be adjusted.

At intervals between the positions of the inclined rollers, thelongitudinal shaft 27 carries rotatably positioned thereon guide arms 61(the guide arms swing.-

around the shaft) which in retracted position remain below the level ofthe rollers and carry outboard guide portions 62 and 63. An inboardlongitudinal guard 64 is also provided mounted on the guide arms 61.

The portion 62 continuously connects the various guide arms 61 beyondthe ends of the rollers as best seen in Figure 3.

A double acting fluid operated cylinder 65 is supported on a housing 66and the housing intermediate the ends of the cylinder is pivoted ontrunnions 67 at the back of each bracket 25. The cylinder has a pistonand rod combination 68 which interconnects by a threaded adjustmentblock 70 to a rod extension 71 which is threaded into a clevis 72pivotally connected at 73 to rearward portions 74 on the guide arms 61which pivot on shaft 27. Beneath the clevis there is a latch 75 pivotedon the frame at 76 and having a resilient buffer 77 which is normallypositioned in the path of the clevis and which limits the forwardmovement of the piston to raise the guiding side guard elements to theposition shown in dot-and-dash lines at the left in Figure 3.

This position acts as a safety guide in case the slope of the rollers 36does not provide sufiicient guidance for the bar 55. This additionalguiding from the side guard elements 62 and 63 may be desirable instarting up the mill when the first few bars may be delivered poorly dueto misalignment of guides, crossing of roll passes and the like whichmight cause excessive deformation at the front end of the bar so thatthe bar would run up the surface of the inclined roller and not enterthe entry guide for the next mill. Once proper delivery of bars has beensecured, the operator can retract the guide arms 61 4 to the full lineposition of Figure 3 and lower the side guard elements 62 and 63 totheir inoperative position.

During the movement of the clevis to engage the buffer 77, the rollers36 remain lowered, as shown in Figure 5.

If it is desired to raise the rollers to their inoperative position, adog 78 which normally holds the latch 75 up is retracted to the side bymanipulation through handle 80. The dog slides on guides 81. When thedog is removed, the latch drops'and on actuation of the cylinder 65, theclevis is pushed forward until abutment 82 on the guide arms 61 engagesarm 83 extending out in its path from the shaft 27, as shown in Figure3. Further advance of the clevis then carries both the guide arms 61 andthe rollers 36 up to the extreme dot-and-dash position indicated at thetop of Figure 3.

In normal operation, when the trough is in operative position, the baris guided by the trough rollers so that a minimum of scratching ordamage to the bar occurs. The speed control operator can see the barreadily on the trough and can regulate the speed accurately.

In case a side loop forms, the sloping position of the roller axes andthe slope of the side of the roller flange adjoining the roller, providea combination trough and side looping surface which does not require theuse of any side looping retractable guides.

The slope of the cylindrical portion of the rollers urges the bar towardthe lower end of the rollers and the flange keeps the bar from fallingoff the lower end. The bar is thus carried on the mill center line andthe front end of the bar is kept in alignment with the mill center lineso that it will enter the next roll stand at the proper position. Theuniform sloping cylindrical surface of the rollers, on the other hand,assures an easy outlet for a side loop should a side loop form betweenthe stands because one stand feeds material faster than the succeedingstand takes it away.

If the operator anticipates poor delivery of a bar, for example at thebeginning of mill operation, he may advance the clevis to engage thebuffer 77, and thus positively raise side guards above the trough, butas soon as normal operation has been restored these side guards willpreferably be lowered to inoperative position.

When it is desired to clear the space between the roll stands forworking on the guards or otherwise, it is merely necessary to remove thedogs 78 and allow the latches 75 to swing out of the path of theclevises. When hydraulic fluid is then applied to the cylinders in theproper direction the shafts 27 swing and raise the trough rollers out ofthe way as indicated at the top of Figure 3.

There is little danger that mill scale or other foreign matter will clogthe mechanism as there are no exposed rails or sliding guides on whichthe base must move.

In view of my invention and disclosure variations and modifications tomeet individual whim or particular need will doubtless become evident toothers skilled in the art, to obtain all orpart of the benefits of myinvention without copying the structure shown, and I, therefore, claimall such insofar as they fall within the reasonable spirit and scope ofmy claims.

Having thus described my invention what I claim as new and desire tosecure by Letters Patent is:

1. In a rolling mill trough, a plurality of rollers pivotally mountedside by side on parallel axes in a common plane, the roller axes beingtransverse to the direction of progression of the stock, the roller axesin one position being inclined downwardly toward one end, flanges on therollers in line at the one end, side guards adjoining one end of therollers and power-operated means for raising the side guards above therollers.

2. In a rolling mill trough, a plurality of rollers pivotally mountedside by side on parallel axes in a common plane, the roller axes beingtransverse to the direction of progression of the stock, the roller axesin one position being inclined downwardly toward one end, flanges on therollers in line at the one end, guide arms pivotally mounted andextending out between the rollers, side guard means on the guide armsand having a position beneath the rollers and a position above therollers and adjoining the ends thereof, and power-operated means forraising the arms and the side guard means to a posi tion above therollers.

3. In a rolling mill trough, a plurality of rollers pivotally mountedside by side on parallel axes in a common plane, the roller axes beingtransverse to the direction of progression of the stock, the roller axesin one position being inclined downwardly toward one end, flanges on therollers in line at the one end, guide arms pivotally mounted andextending out beneath the rollers, side guard means on the guide armsand having a position beneath the rollers and a position above therollers and adjacent one end thereof, power-operated means for raisingthe arms and the side guard means to a position above the rollers, andmeans interconnecting the rollers with the arms for swinging the rollersupward on further advance of the arms.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS392,365 Roberts Nov. 6, 1888 926,863 George July 6, 1909 1,021,253 KingMar. 26, 1912 1,650,037 Phillips Nov. 22, 1927 1,708,411 Diescher Apr.9, 1929 1,743,044 Morgan Jan. 7, 1930 2,628,697 Prentice Feb. 17, 1953

